Every company has blind spots.  It doesn’t take a big data project to identify the blind spots that are due to “data gaps” in the organization— missing opportunities that, if addressed, can drive immediate insights and improvements in sales and marketing.  But where do you start? According to Forrester, most big data projects fail by not asking the right questions upfront.  The same is true when it comes to improving sales and marketing.  While every company is different, here are 20 (very answerable) data-driven questions that every B2B company should ask and address.

Strategy

1.  How can you quickly assess the potential of new products and markets?  What data is available?

2.  How do your customers perceive your company and brands vs. your competitors?

Growing your database

3. What (non-obvious) characteristics do your best customers have in common?  And how can you increase your odds of getting more of them?

4. What are the big gaps in your database?

5. To what extent are duplicate records and inaccurate data interfering with your sales productivity (and marketing effectiveness)?

 Improving marketing effectiveness

6. How can you track the effectiveness of each campaign and channel—not just ALL the way through the marketing process but in sales too (beyond web analytics)?

7. Identify previously unknown prospects

a. How can you identify which companies are visiting your websites –  who DON’T sign up for anything—and companies that call you but DON”T leave a message?

b. How can you target and market to previously “unknown” prospects?

8. Lead qualification – How can you get more qualified leads?

9. Marketing benchmarks — What does “good” look like?  What are the benchmarks across the industry?

Increasing sales effectiveness

10. Where you are losing prospects in your sales and marketing funnel? (and what is the potential revenue gain from improving each piece of the funnel)

11. If you have an outbound telesales team, how many phone calls per prospect are needed to maximize your revenue?  How many is too much?

12. Which (non-obvious) metrics do your most successful sales reps have in common?  And your least successful sales reps?

Building a Data-Driven Organization

13. What are the key challenges in building a more data driven organization?

14.  How can you overcome these challenges?

Recommended Analyses

15. Which quantitative methods can help you better score leads?

16. Which advanced methods can help you target the right offer and right product to the right customer?

17. What do you need to know about your current customers (but don’t)?

18. What do you need to know about your potential customers (but don’t)?

Learning more about your competitors

19.  What competitive info must you know that you don’t know now?

20.  How can you get this info?

Boundless Markets addresses all 20 of these issues – and more – by conducting a data audit for B2B companies, with specific recommendations on how to fill these data gaps.

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